After siege, pals wonder exactly what went wrong

The double lives of Gaetano Alessandrello and Amanda Moeller unraveled just before prime time with a single shot from a police sniper's rifle.

Outside a Mercantile Bank in Osceola County, Alessandrello, a former restaurateur known for a tasty chicken Florentine, fell dead, and his longtime business partner -- a talented manager who loved to make scrapbooks -- surrendered to authorities Tuesday night.

It was a violent end to a 10-hour hostage standoff that began when Alessandrello and Moeller walked into the bank and demanded money, deputies say. In November, they had done the same thing, authorities say.

Now Alessandrello is dead, Moeller, a 26-year-old single mother, sits in the Osceola County Jail, and their friends wonder what happened.

It is "beyond shock," said Glenn Kroll, a judge in Bloomingburg, N.Y., where Alessandrello and Moeller used to live. "It's a phenomenal story. It's like a movie. This guy was not a piece of [expletive]. I mean, he was at my wedding.''

Alessandrello, 50, who was also known as Tano or Tom, and Moeller had been friends and business partners for years. In New York, they ran a pizza joint together.

When Alessandrello headed south in 2004, Moeller followed and managed his business here that cleaned time-share units and commercial property.

A close friend of Moeller's described her as a meticulous manager with a knack for paperwork. Moeller generally followed Alessandrello's lead, Maria Davis said.

"He was the more dominant of the two in their business decisions," said Davis, who spent weekends making scrapbooks with her friend and who had dinner with her Monday. "If he said, `Let's go rob a bank today,' she would go along. It's not something she would do by herself."

Moeller was charged Wednesday with one count of armed bank robbery. More charges will be filed, Osceola Sheriff Bob Hansell said.

But Alessandrello's friends say it's not something he would do at all.

Kroll met Alessandrello in 1987, when the Sicilian-born chef opened Tano's Pizza on the main street of Bloomingburg, a small town in the Catskills. Business prospered, and soon he opened a diner in nearby Wurtsboro and a sit-down restaurant. Moeller began working for him in the late 1990s.

"Every Sunday he would cook big dinners at his house," said Kroll, who helped sell his friend's businesses and home when he moved to Florida in 2004. "He was such a storyteller. And I never saw him show a temper toward anybody."

But Alessandrello hadn't always been so successful.

He was released from prison in 1987, according to federal records. His crime? Kidnapping a banker's wife in Paterson, N.J., and holding her for $217,000 ransom.

Investigators say Alessandrello returned to his old habits in November. They say he and Moeller went to the same Mercantile Bank and made off with $38,000. Moeller is expected to be charged with that crime today. Detectives are checking whether they may have been responsible for more robberies.

The pair went back to the bank Tuesday morning, deputies say. A silent alarm tipped the Osceola County Sheriffs Office, which sent some nearby motorcycle deputies to investigate.

A dispatcher then called the bank and asked a staff member to step outside to let a deputy know that everything was all right, said Maj. Jay Crose.

A woman emerged -- "She was white as white could be," he said -- and whispered something was wrong.

"That's when the deputy took her," Crose said. "He wasn't going to let them have another body."

About the same point, a teller told the robbers that the strip mall housing the bank had been surrounded, the Sheriff's Office said. It was unclear Wednesday if the teller knew deputies were on the scene or whether she merely tried to scare the robbers into fleeing.

Meanwhile, other deputies scrambled to move other employees in the strip mall to safety. They burst into Rachel Woodburn's office shouting, "Everybody get out! Get out!"

"It was scary. It was absolutely scary," said Woodburn, an office assistant with a realty firm. "Especially since there were hostages in there, and I know some of the hostages."

As the hours passed, Alessandrello released hostages until only one remained. But he was growing more agitated and suggested he might do something violent, deputies said.

During the standoff, he apparently called his wife several times to reassure her.

"During the first conversation, he didn't tell her where he was but he sounded real stressed," said Kroll, who spoke to Alessandrello's wife, Barbara, late Tuesday. "They had six or seven calls after that. He kept telling her, `Barbara, don't worry. Don't worry. It's going to be OK. I'm coming home. I'm going to get out of this.' "

Barbara Alessandrello begged her husband to surrender and pleaded with deputies to let her go to the bank, Kroll said. But deputies would not let her leave the family's Celebration town home.

About 7 p.m., Alessandrello and Moeller tried to escape in a bank employee's Lexus, but a roadblock forced them to turn back.

Thirty minutes later, they tried again, this time in a sport utility vehicle. Hansell said Alessandrello threatened to kill himself and his last hostage.

That's when Hansell gave the order for the sniper to open fire. Alessandrello's family was watching the drama unfold on TV, Kroll said.

Alessandrello's family declined to talk to reporters. One of his daughters and a group of friends huddled on the family's porch Wednesday. When a reporter approached, she shouted, "He was misunderstood! He's the best father ever, and I will miss him."